Politics off-limits to PNoy (you’d better believe it!)

Malacañang said that President Benigno Simeon Aquino 3rd is too busy with governance to talk about politics. Thus, it refused to comment on VP Jojo Binay’s decision to junk the PDP-Laban and form his own party as vehicle for a presidential bid in 2016.

The President is so averse to politics that he ignores calls for the audit of his pork barrel when he was a congressman and a senator, and how he implemented the Disbursement Acceleration Program. Why, those issues are completely political and Malacañang will have nothing to do with them. After all, BS Aquino has already said he has been transparent in all his dealings so why should his hopeless critics badger him with demands for a complete accounting of his pork as legislator and as president?

Now, the investigation on the alleged misuse of the pork of three senators is a completely different matter. This involves good governance and is in furtherance of BS Aquino’s war against corruption, right? It’s providential that the Senate panel close to Malacañang was able to secure testimonies that are game winners and slam-dunks.

What about testimonies and documents against persons and agencies close to the President? Well, no such damaging documents or testimonies had cropped up in the very meticulous Senate inquiry so that’s that. Let sleeping dogs lie.

Sure, there were claims that persons close to BSA were engaged in graft and corrupt practices but those persons are entitled to due process, aren’t they? And it’s in observance of due process that BS Aquino defended his associates and even volunteered to put up the bail bond for some of those accused. How can’t we fail to admire the President’s sense of justice?

Please don’t bother BS Aquino with trivial things like politics. He already has his hands full in his last two minutes in the Palace. For instance, he’s making a difficult balancing act fighting off Chinese aggression in the contested West Philippine Sea atolls while giving away the Philippine claim to Sabah to Malaysia. He’s willing to sacrifice the last Filipino life in defense of the Philippine territorial claim to the atolls in the WPS while he has nothing but contempt for the Filipinos who were killed trying to reclaim the mineral-rich Sabah.

Then, there’s the problem of traffic in Metro Manila. Ah, this is a problem that’s tailor made for BS Aquino who’s called “Man of Steel” by his adoring fans. Superman, the original “Man of Steel” acts in a jiffy and so does the President. Within a week after traffic got snarled because of his public works projects, his administration immediately started to map plans to alleviate it.

One of the proposals to ease traffic is to field more coaches for the Metro Rail Transit.

I had heard Sen. Ralph Recto air this proposal several years back but hey, all he could do is talk, talk, talk. It takes Malacañang’s Man of Steel to act on this proposal. Thanks to the fast reaction of our Man of Steel, 48 MRT coaches will be delivered in 2016, three months before he leaves the Palace. Aren’t Filipinos blessed to have an action man for president? No wonder, the Philippines is justifiably proud for being the only country in the world that has an honest-to-goodness BS for president.

The President has about 28 more months left before he leaves Malacañang, unless some fortuitous events shorten it. Critics should not begrudge him should he make sure that somebody who’ll protect his back will succeed him. The front-runner for 2016, Vice President Jojo Binay fills the bill. I still have to hear him speak against the administration. He has had excellent ties with the Aquino family and I believe he’ll maintain these to enhance his chances in the upcoming presidential derby.

In my column (If Veep Jojo Binay becomes president) last Jan. 25, after Manila Times editors and columnists had a “working lunch” with him, I wrote that he won’t declare the United Nationalist Alliance an out-and-out opposition party. Oh yes, I wasn’t surprised when the Veep officially announced that he was quitting the PDP-Laban. I sensed in that “working lunch” that he was already distancing himself from the party that he heads.